


A Long Match Set to Kindling

by tuesdayfic (tuesday)



Category: Psych
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-20
Updated: 2009-09-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 23:58:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesdayfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgan Conrad and the people who wind through her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Long Match Set to Kindling

**Author's Note:**

> Morgan Conrad is from 3x12 ("Earth, Wind and...Wait for It"). Written for tl--dr for our Jules femslash birthday exchange. Thank you to sirdrakesheir for audiencing and uminohikari for betaing.

When Morgan was five, her grandfather gave her a firetruck for Christmas.

"Early onset Alzheimer's," her grandmother said to her mother in a hushed voice.

Morgan didn't know what that meant. She just knew that the firetruck was a bright, shiny red, that it matched some of the round glass balls hung on the massive pine tree holding center stage of the living room. She just knew her grandfather's arms were warm around her as he spun her in the air and asked, "What do you think, little buddy? Gonna be a fireman like your old man?"

\--

Once, Morgan wished as hard as she could that she'd been born a boy, so she could have everything she thought she wanted. She was still in elementary school, and her best friend was marrying Bill Johnson under a tree, standing on the grass ringing the playground.

"Bill and Jill," Jill said happily.

"If I do this, will you let me go?" Bill asked miserably.

It wasn't that Morgan thought her tendency toward running, jumping, and climbing trees was out of place for a girl, or that it was unfeminine to threaten Bill with a kick in the head if he tried to escape. It was just--

"You can marry him next time," Jill said, patting Morgan on the shoulder, and then went to sit in the grass next to Bill. A gentle spring breeze rustled her curly blond hair, and her small, pale hands looked perfect against Bill's dark palms.

Philip ran over, his cheeks fire engine red. "You can't do this! I'll tell the teacher!"

"Shut up, Philip, you're ruining everything," Jill said darkly.

Bill heaved a put upon sigh. "Let's get this over with."

"You can be the best man," Jill said. Philip looked unhappy and opened his mouth, maybe to call for a teacher, but Jill added quickly, before he could say anything, "Or Morgan here can kick you in the head."

Philip subsided and stood sulkily next to Bill. Morgan took her place next to Jill.

It was just--

Morgan didn't want to be a bride, or a bridesmaid. She wanted to be standing on the other side.

\--

By the time she was eleven, she knew that her grandfather often mistook her for her dad. They had the same dark hair, and her mother kept it short, because it always got tangled in things--if long, it caught in tree branches and on fences or just round and round in the hairbrush bristles.

"Honestly," her mother would say, pulling out the shears she used on Morgan's hair. "It's like you do it on purpose."

"I want to be a ballerina," Morgan reassured her grandmother as her mother cut her hair back into a pixie cut.

Her grandmother smiled fondly. "Somehow, I doubt that."

"No, really," Morgan protested. "So I can spin-kick bad guys in the face."

"I don't think ballerinas do that," her mother said. The scissors made soft _snip-snip-snip_ noises, and hair tumbled down the back of Morgan's neck.

"Crime-fighting vigilante ballerinas," Morgan said stubbornly.

When her mother was finished, her grandmother patted her on the head and led her back out into the den to play Rummy with her grandfather. "You can be anything you want," her grandfather told her, his expression only a little perplexed. "Even a, a crime-fighting vigilante ballerina."

Morgan beamed up at him and cut the deck.

\--

Before she met Shawn Spencer (and Burton Guster, both of whom were pretty much impossible to forget), if Morgan had been asked about the happiest day of her life, she would have said graduation, and her grandfather standing with her mother and grandmother in the crowd. He'd been having a good day, and he knew her for his granddaughter, no reminders necessary.

"Hey there, new grad," he'd said, pulling her into a hug and sweeping her cap from her head. "Now what?"

"I'm going to catch the people who set the fires you once put out." It was what she'd studied for, what she wanted, and very rarely did she change her mind.

"I remember when--" her grandfather began, starting a story, and Morgan listened intently, because it was possible that she'd never yet heard it and might never hear it again.

\--

After Shawn Spencer (because Shawn Spencer in some ways was like a life-changing event, strange and touchy and annoying and kind of fun as he was)--

Well, there was the investigation and being trusted to take lead, but almost as good was getting Juliet--"Call me Jules"--O'Hara's phone number, written on the back of Morgan's hand, pen nub scratching gently at her skin.

"It'll be great," Juliet said, smiling winningly, shiny pink lips stretched wide and straight white teeth revealed. "I'm sure you know how it is, not having a lot of other people who understand."

"Understand?" Morgan repeated, trying not to flush too obviously from having that smile shone like a heat lamp her way.

"You know," Juliet waved a hand at Shawn, Gus, and Lassiter, lurking ill-concealed in the hospital hall. She leaned in, and Morgan automatically mirrored her, so Juliet's breath puffed gently against Morgan's lips and chin, as she said, hushed, "It's still something of a boys' club."

One lock of Juliet's hair had fallen forward and was caught at the edge of her mouth. The dark pink of her lower lip contrasted delicately with the blond strands and the smooth, pale skin of her cheek. Morgan's eyes were caught there as she replied, absentmindedly, "Yes, I know."

Juliet's next smile was as bright and striking as any blaze Morgan had ever seen, her soft hand on Morgan's wrist just as searing. "Maybe next Friday."

The words felt more promise than suggestion.

"Maybe," Morgan helplessly agreed.

\--

Next Friday she was barely back on the job, but someone had set another fire, this time a young teen fighting boredom with flames. He was caught entranced at the scene, the building was abandoned, and the arrest went easy. Even the fire licking up the side of the rickety house was quickly doused. It felt like there was barely a point to calling her in at all.

But she had to cover all her bases, and then there was paperwork, and in the end, it turned out that "maybe" was a fleeting idea after all.

That night, she toweled her hair dry, hung the towel precisely over the curtain rod, and crawled tiredly into bed in her favorite blue flannel pajamas. An ex-girlfriend, Sally--her only serious girlfriend--had said they were too butch to match her pretty face and hair, but Morgan liked them. They were worn and comfortable, like old and well-beloved slippers for her whole body. It wasn't precisely that she needed the comfort. It was just that the glare of the digital clock was likely to keep her awake.

9:00, it read. She could still call.

Morgan slipped her right hand under the pillow and tried not to remember the ballpoint tip dragging along her skin. Sleep snuck up slowly. In the morning, she couldn't even remember closing her eyes.

\--

"Grandpa," she asked, sitting in the chair at his bedside, "how did you and Grandma meet?"

This was an old story, one she'd heard many times, but she thought, hoped, that made it easier to remember.

Her grandfather smiled slow and easy, settling back into his pillows and heating pad. "I had this tree in the park, I'd always sit under it to study. Your grandmother, she was a fine young lady, and she always claimed the tree next to it to read--"

He made it halfway through before he lost the thread of it, lost the thread of the day, then the year. "Marian?" he asked her. "Marian, is that you?"

Morgan clutched his hand in hers and smiled tremulously. "No, but it's okay. I'll be right back." Her mother and grandmother were chatting in the kitchen, and her mother came straight away.

"Such a nice young girl," her grandfather said as Morgan slipped out of the room again. "Keeps her chin up. Someone raised her well."

Morgan kept her chin up all the way to the kitchen, where she awkwardly gathered her gentle, steadfast grandmother into her arms.

"We've decided," her grandmother said. "With you in the hospital, and with, with everything--Your mom assures me it's a good facility, that they can take care of him better there. And you can visit, any time."

"Of course, Grandmama," Morgan said. "I'll visit. I'll visit any time." This, at least, was a promise she could hold true.

\--

Morgan didn't consider herself inherently lonely. She kept up correspondence with friends from as far back as middle school. She went out for drinks with several of her colleagues every other week, though she usually stuck to cranberry juice or screwdrivers without the vodka. She even kept in touch with Sally. She had 62 families or individuals to whom she planned to send Christmas cards that year, carefully printed out in her address index.

She wasn't the first person most people would call for an exciting night out, she knew that, but like her grandmother, she was steadfast. Like her grandfather, she had a sense of adventure she kept mostly to herself, waiting for those willing to see. Shawn Spencer had, unexpectedly, been someone looking. But it was just as well it took her a while to warm to him, because he and Gus had swept out of her life as unexpectedly as they'd swooped in.

Morgan really wasn't even all that lonely. She didn't wish Gus or Shawn back. There was just--this tiny, niggling longing, that that particular adventure had left more than the memory of a dark pink smile behind.

\--

The next time Shawn Spencer whirled into her life, Juliet O'Hara was at his side instead of Burton Guster.

"We're partner swapping," Shawn explained, voice careless and eyes bright. "Like wife swapping, but infinitely more intimate and awkward. Did you know Jules here won't even do the victory dance?"

"Shawn," Juliet said warningly, though Morgan remembered her as much more amused by his antics before.

Shawn subsided only a moment, then said, "Two arsassins in one year. What are the odds?"

Morgan considered. "Not actually that high."

Juliet's eyes widened. "You're right--"

Shawn bounced suddenly on his toes. "Did you see that file where--I mean, I'm having a psychic vision that--"

Juliet waved all mentions of psychic visions away. "I saw the file, and--"

Morgan supposed she should feel left out, but there was that smile--a light pink today, but very much the same--and Morgan knew firsthand how easy it was to be absorbed in the work. She could be patient and wait their first excited ramblings out. In the meantime, she wanted to examine the accelerant again.

\--

After the case wrapped up, Juliet pulled Morgan aside. This time, they'd managed without anyone making a trip to the emergency room, though it was a close call when Shawn and Gus had jumped from the second story window to the roof of a garage below. Lassiter was still lecturing them about letting the "real police" do the chasing, and Gus was loudly and adamantly agreeing with him.

"I never should have left you two alone," Shawn's mournful voice drifted over.

A lock of hair had escaped Juliet's ponytail and fell forward into her face again. It was more distracting than the squabbling voices of the men behind them, and--without thinking--Morgan reached forward and tucked it behind Juliet's ear. Juliet's cheeks were flushed, Morgan noted, but she had tackled the fleeing suspect only minutes before.

Juliet swallowed before speaking. "I, um, I have to go back to the station in a minute, but--" Juliet looked down for only an instant, but her eyes were determined when she looked back up to meet Morgan's gaze. "Tonight. Have dinner with me." Juliet smiled, lips twisted at the corners like she was a little unsure of herself. "If you want to."

It was the small, shaken confidence in the twist to that smile that decided her.

"I'm good at reading fires," Morgan said. "At spotting ignition points, at how hot and fast something will burn. But--but my last girlfriend," and here it was Morgan's turn to swallow, "she told me I was bad at this. At reading these sorts of clues."

The lock of Juliet's hair had made another break for freedom. Hand steady, steadfast, Morgan tucked it into place again. Juliet didn't pull away.

"Yes," Morgan said. "I want to."

Morgan wondered how anyone could light fires when faced with a smile that bright, that brilliant.

\--

Dinner was at seven. Morgan showered and changed into clean clothes, pin-striped trousers and a white button-up blouse. She poked helplessly at her hair and frowned at the mirror. It frowned back. Lip gloss and hair barrettes, she supposed, would not be that much help.

She called her grandmother, because she had the time.

"He's having a good day," her grandmother said. "Do you want to speak to him?"

"Yes." Morgan smiled. "But first, can you tell me the story of how you and Grandpa met?"

Her grandmother so rarely got to tell this story.

"We were in a park," her grandmother said, "but that wasn't really important. The important part was the first date. He stood me up, then had the _temerity_ to show up next to my tree that Sunday, like it hadn't even happened. That man--"

Morgan let the memory of her grandmother's voice, full of fond exasperation, buoy her through her grandfather's trembling stops and starts, and the joy of both conversations kept her smiling all the way to the restaurant.

Juliet was already seated. She looked up at Morgan's arrival and quirked her lips as if catching that joy. "Nice evening so far?"

Feeling brave, Morgan let her hands drift across the table to brush the tips of Juliet's fingers. "Looks to be."

\--

Their love wasn't a whirlwind. It sparked and kindled slowly. One dinner turned to another, turned to lunches caught together during work breaks and long Saturday dates at the park flying kites and playing frisbee. A Saturday night turned finally to a Sunday morning and breakfast in bed. Forgotten socks led to an extra toothbrush led to Morgan standing outside this open door, Juliet's hand clutched tight in her own.

"Grandfather," Morgan said, squeezing Juliet's hand encouragingly, "I have someone I want you to meet."


End file.
